Cutie is as Qutee does
by Balin Lord of Moria
Summary: Qutee, the pink D-Squad mech droid, has an adventure with her master, Aayla Secura, on Carida, and her friends and allies find out that nothing can shake her chipper personality. Qutee is almost as resilient as R2-D2 here. Co-stars Aayla Secura and Commander Bly, but QT-KT is the main character.


**Disclaimer: **I don't own the Clone Wars or its characters; Disney does, and so does George Lucas. This is just my own version of a story about a lovable droid.

* * *

**Cutie is as Qutee does**

* * *

This was one fine adventure as far as she was concerned, and she was enjoying every minute of it.

QT-KT, the astromech droid of Aayla Secura, had just returned to active duty with her master, and they were going to go on a mission to Carida in order to rescue Captain Dodonna from Separatist forces that had landed on the planet and taken him hostage, securing the entire military base there at the same time. Commander Bly and some of his troops in the 327th Star Corps were coming along to lend some assistance, but the mission depended primarily on Aayla and Qutee, because Dodonna's friend, Admiral Terrinald Screed, had requested that a Jedi be the one to rescue Dodonna, and one of the better ones in the Order, and Qutee also had expertise in working with the Jedi.

At this time, they were on their way to the planet right now. Qutee and her fellow D-Squad droids had already been here recently, when saving the space station _Valor_ from destruction, and it interested her that she was returning so soon. She chirped an enthusiastic sentence to Master Secura.

Aayla laughed quietly. "I know, Qutee, you want to get into the thick of the action. I appreciate your chipper personality, but be mindful of your thoughts. We cannot afford to let ourselves get distracted in this mission."

"Don't worry, General Secura," said Bly, who stood next to her, "I think your droid is as trustworthy as you are, and she has proven herself useful to the Star Corps before."

"I know, Commander, I know," Aayla replied. "I, too, believe Qutee will be of help in any situation. If she can rank up with Anakin's droid, R2-D2, in skill and popularity, then surely Qutee will serve us well there."

* * *

Shortly afterwards, they came out of hyperspace in orbit around the high-gravity planet, and Aayla flew down towards a certain spot on the planet with Qutee in her Jedi starfighter astromech socket. Bly and several other clones followed in ARC-170's, with Lieutenants Galle and Inc with Bly in his 170.

The plan was that Aayla's star destroyer, the _Intrepid_, with help from two backup cruisers that would arrive soon, would fight the bigger battle with three Banking Clan frigates and a Trade Federation battleship and their fleet of fighters, while Aayla and her Commander, Lieutenants, and mech droid, would fly through one area crawling with tri-fighters and vulture droids until they reached the planet's surface.

On the way down, Aayla and Bly had to deal with a lot of those enemy fighters, and at least two of Bly's backup 170's were blown up by them. They also had to dodge discord missiles shot from one tri-fighter, which released several buzz droids on their fighters. One more 170 was ripped apart by the crazy little critters, but fortunately, Qutee was ready to help. She remembered a tip Artoo-Detoo had given her about beating buzz droids, and she extended her dome's electroshock gun, firing at the center eye of each maniacal metal munchkin on Aayla's starfighter. Then, Qutee released her high-power magnet in her dome and used it to pull all the other buzz droids off of Bly's starfighter. The rest of the backup fighters were gone by now.

Qutee cheered ecstatically, spinning her dome and warbling like a cute little kid as she drew back her magnet. "Good work, Qutee," said Aayla, "but don't get too happy just yet. We still have to land and get inside the Separatist headquarters to rescue the Captain."

Aayla was right, Qutee knew that, but as dangerous as the planet Carida was, she thought nothing could be worse than when she and D-Squad went on their mission with Colonel Gascon. She assisted her master with landing her fighter quickly and quietly by a back entrance to the Separatist base, while Bly, Galle, and Inc did the same with their own fighter. Battle droids were waiting for them.

"Look! Over there! Jedi and clones!" a B1 shouted.

"Roger, roger," the other B1's barked enthusiastically as they raised their blasters to fire.

Aayla leaped out of her fighter and kicked one droid hard enough to smash it with her foot, and then she proceeded to cut down every other one in her path. Bly and his lieutenants poured blaster fire into most of the others. Qutee popped out of her socket and lingered in the background for a moment.

Most of the droids had soon been destroyed by Aayla's lightsaber or the clones' blasters, but one commando droid was sneaking up on Aayla. It raised its vibrosword and prepared to swing.

"[Whistle!] Doo, doo, de de de, dee doo!" she whistled innocently. The commando droid turned around and looked down at Qutee incredulously. How can this thing defeat me? He seemed to be thinking.

Then, her magnet shot out again, and pulled away the droid's vibrosword. It almost pulled on the droid itself, but Qutee made the magnet turn away from the commando as it dropped the sword. Then she shot out a cable and proceeded to tie the droid up with it, like she and Ceefor had done with Borkus on Abafar. Finally, an amused Aayla Secura chopped the confused commando droid's head off.

"Good work, Qutee," said Aayla. "Now, locate the Captain for us."

Qutee plugged herself into the wall next to the door, displaying that Captain Dodonna's signal was coming from the center of the headquarters, at its very heart. She also decoded the door, opening the door for them. After a "Thank you, Qutee," Aayla, Bly and the others went on in while Qutee guarded the fighters by Aayla's orders.

* * *

Qutee saw her share of excitement that day, even though she didn't go with her Jedi master or the clones on the main part of the mission. She kept them updated on the directions they had to take in order to get to Dodonna through her own signals. At one point, though, she had another incident with a few battle droids.

A crab droid or two came along to investigate the back entrance. They first examined the Jedi fighter and the ARC-170 for anything that might be hidden in them. Then, one of them detected the astromech standing nearby, even though Qutee was trying to hide behind some equipment.

"What are you doing here, you puny little astro droid?" one of them demanded in its machine-like voice. The other one (presumably the other one, Qutee couldn't tell for sure which one had spoken) suddenly tried to smash her under its claws. Qutee was quite teed off at being called "puny," to say the least, and she dodged the claw quickly. The same crab droid then slurped up some dirty water from nearby and shot it at Qutee, trying to short-circuit her.

Qutee was too quick for them. She sped along past the crab machine, saying "Catch me if you can!" in mech droid language. She passed the other crab, and the attacking crab accidently short-circuited it instead. Then she used her strong magnet to bend the vacuum pump on the first crab toward the droid's photoreceptors, and it, too, got blinded and fried by the filthy water.

Ecstatic at her triumph, Qutee banged her magnet on the crab droids' metal bodies like a drum. But that was a mistake. Soon, her magnet hit too close to a fried circuit on one of the droids, and the magnet sprang back into her dome, bringing a shock of electricity with it. Qutee found her little body shooting forward and banging against a wall. She screamed, "Wwwooooooowwwwwwwoooo!"

As she started to recover, she was suddenly surrounded by more battle droids than she could fight on her own. Three droidekas, six super battle droids, a dozen standard battle droids, and a couple of magnaguards. She tried shocking a super battle droid that said, "Don't move!" but it just hit her for her trouble, making her dome dizzy.

* * *

Qutee was taken prisoner by the droids, and found herself taken to the control center in the Separatist bunker, where Aayla, Bly, Galle, Inc, and Jan Dodonna had just been taken themselves after being caught in their escape attempt. "This doesn't look good, General Secura," said Galle, "They got your droid, too. Now, we're _all_ captured."

"Don't worry, Lieutenant," said Aayla reassuringly, "An opportunity will present itself sooner or later. The Force shall see to that."

"If you say so, sir," said Galle, who still sounded doubtful.

"So," said the Separatist commander standing before them, none other than Whorm Loathsom himself, "I finally have a Jedi in my clutches again. It was a good attempt at rescuing this scum from the Republic Navy, but of course, it failed. Let me assure you that you will not succeed in defeating me the same way Kenobi, Skywalker, and Tano did back at the Battle of Christophsis."

"I beg to differ, Loathsom," Aayla said carefully. "We have the light of the Force on our side, and you know quite well that Jedi Knights and clone troopers are more than a match for the majority of your battle droids. We can still win."

"That's right," said Bly, "You Separatist scum don't stand a chance."

Loathsom sneered at them with contempt. "On the contrary. _You_ are _Republic_ scum! All of you!"

Qutee was silent up until this point, but here, she trilled a response to Loathsom.

"What does your dumb mech have to say for itself?" Loathsom demanded.

"I believe that she's saying that nothing will ever get her down," interpreted Aayla. "She's a very chipper little girl, and she's almost indomitable in the face of despair."

"Really?" Loathsom remarked. "Perhaps I can teach her to despair by taking her apart, piece by piece, after all of you are disposed of!"

That made Qutee mad, and she charged Loathsom, knocking him off his feet since his body wasn't much larger than hers. Then she spun her dome like a top spinner, and shot electricity all around the room. Aayla and the clones ducked in time, bringing a startled Dodonna down with them. Half the battle droids in the room were soon down and out, but the other half were still battle worthy.

Aayla called her lightsaber to her hand and helped the clone troopers get their blasters back. Bly lent one of his pearl-handled DC-17 hand blasters to Dodonna, and they all started to cut down the remaining droids. Aayla fought the magnaguards, while Dodonna and the clones shot the other droids. The droidekas were the hardest to kill, but they succeeded in the end, and without any fatalities.

Loathsom got to his feet and sounded the alarm, and then made a run for it with his new LEP servant droid, intending to escape from the Jedi this time. But Qutee followed him and used her ever-trusty magnet to pull back the servant droid. Loathsom was distracted by this. Qutee electroshocked the servant droid, and released it from her magnet while butting into it as hard as she was capable. The busted droid shot forward and hit Loathsom in the gut, stunning him again. Qutee once again chirped like a joyful little songbird, as Aayla and her troops and Dodonna came running to see what had happened.

"Well, I'll be darned," said Inc, "This droid's so extraordinary, she could rival the popularity of R2-D2 any day, though I mean no offense to Artoo, or General Skywalker."

Aayla patted Qutee on her domed head. "Thanks, Qutee," she said with a smile, "You really do know how to get the Star Corps and I out of our messes in battle. If it hadn't been for you, Whorm Loathsom would have gotten away. Cuff Loathsom, men, and let's get out of this base, so that the bulk of the army can destroy it."

* * *

An hour later, they were back on the _Intrepid_, which was now fighting the Separatist fleet, as well as sending gunships down to battle on the surface. Later than that, after they won, they were headed back to Coruscant to report on the mission's success. Aayla made a special note on how well Qutee-Katee had performed her part of the mission, also.

"I knew that I knew what I was doing when I assigned QT-KT and the other droids of D-Squad to the encryption module assignment with Colonel Gascon," remarked Mace Windu after Aayla's report.

"I think Artoo's just found himself another partner in gossip and friendship, based on how loyal that pink astromech is," Anakin Skywalker remarked next.

"But of course, my friends," said Aayla with a smile, "After all, Qutee is a little like Artoo. She's not just a droid; she's an ally, and a friend."

Qutee hopped from leg to leg and warbled musically, evidently quite delighted to be so honored. This mission had been just as fulfilling as her last one with D-Squad.

And who knew what else awaited her in the future?


End file.
